Weekly Innovations from ISRAEL #4

🇮🇱 First off, I want to sincerely thank all of you for your continued interest and engagement with Israeli tech. Your support fuels my passion for showcasing the incredible innovations emerging from Israel’s vibrant tech ecosystem.

This week, I have a powerful slate of Israeli companies to highlight!

You’ll explore a company rethinking how configuration files are managed by developers, followed by an AI-powered workplace search engine that empowers employees to find information across the company’s collective knowledge.

Get ready to dive into a LITERALLY groundbreaking multi-sensor technology that illuminates the underground realm. We’ll also uncover a LLM breakthrough that can process far longer texts while being 3X more computationally efficient, and an investment management platform streamlining every aspect of the real estate industry.

Finally, last and not least, you will read about a solution for recovering falsely declined payments!

So - Get ready to be inspired ! 👇👇👇

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Exodigo - Illuminating the underworld

Let’s begin by the work of Jeremy Suard, Ido Gonen , and the team at Exodigo - which can literally be described as “groundbreaking” for revolutionizing how we map and understand underground infrastructure.

One key sensor type they utilize is ground penetrating radar (GPR), which sends electromagnetic pulses into the ground and measures the reflections to detect objects and map their location. However, GPR alone has limitations in mapping certain materials.

To overcome this, Exodigo also employs electromagnetic induction sensors that can detect conductive objects like pipes and cables by measuring distortions in electromagnetic fields generated by the sensors. Additionally, they use magnetic gradiometers which are highly sensitive to ferromagnetic materials like iron and steel used in pipelines and tanks.

By fusing data streams from these complementary sensor types, Exodigo can comprehensively detect and map all underground utilities regardless of their material composition - something that has been extremely challenging with traditional single-sensor methods.

The true power of Exodigo’s approach lies in their AI algorithms that analyze and integrate this rich multi-sensor data to create stunningly accurate 3D maps of the subsurface infrastructure.

For utility, transportation and infrastructure companies, having access to such comprehensive underground insights is game-changing. Exodigo empowers them to plan smartly, avoid conflicts and hazards, reduce project delays and costs, and prioritize safety and sustainability from the very start.

By illuminating the underground realm, this inspiring company is helping build a better world.

Exodigo uses sensor fusion to comprehensively detect and map all underground utilities regardless of their material composition

AI21 Jamba - The LLM breakthrough that’s 3X faster

Next, I am proud to highlight the latest breakthrough from AI21 Labs : a large language model called #Jamba, capable of handling longer contexts than most other models on the market while being dramatically more efficient.Jamba, a text-generating and analyzing model, can process up to 140,000 tokens (approximately 210 pages) while running on a single GPU, or a staggering 256,000 tokens when working on multiple GPUs. This remarkable feat is achieved through a combination of two AI model architectures: transformers and state space models (SSMs).

Transformers are the backbone of many complex AI models, including GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini, known for their attention mechanism that weighs the relevance of input data. On the other hand, SSMs are more computationally efficient and can handle long sequences of data, making them well-suited for tasks like language generation. By integrating the open-source Mamba SSM model into Jamba’s core architecture, AI21 Labs has created a model that delivers three times the throughput on long contexts compared to transformer-based models of comparable sizes.

This innovation, spearheaded by AI21’s founders, Prof. Yoav Shoham , Ori Goshen , and Prof. Amnon Shashua, demonstrates the potential of SSMs and paves the way for more efficient and capable AI systems.The ability to process longer contexts is a valuable contribution, as it allows models to better grasp the flow of data and avoid forgetting crucial information from recent conversations or inputs.

Furthermore, by releasing Jamba under an open-source license, AI21 is fostering collaboration and enabling researchers and companies worldwide to explore and build upon its innovative technology.

Jamba uses a novel architecture that is 3X more efficient than existing LLMs while processing extremely long texts

Agora - Streamlining Real Estate investments

Next in our lineup, let’s spotlight Agora E, a real estate investment management platform that is transforming the industry.

Founded by Bar Mor , Lior Dolinski , and Noam Kahan , Agora has developed a platform designed specifically for syndicates of investors, including investment houses, real estate development funds, and family offices.

Agora’s solution streamlines the entire investment lifecycle, empowering firms to manage over 40,000 investors, 100,000 investments, and $120 billion in assets under management with unparalleled efficiency. From fundraising and investor relationship management to reporting, payments, secure document sharing, and tax operations, Agora’s customizable software automates and simplifies every aspect of the investment process.

By enabling faster fundraising, streamlining back-office tasks, ensuring timely and professional tax outcomes, and facilitating seamless fund transfers, Agora is driving real estate firms to reach their full potential.

Israel’s vibrant technology ecosystem continues to shine, producing groundbreaking innovations that have a global impact on the real estate industry.

Agora is driving real estate firms to reach their full potential by automating all aspects of the investment process

Bounce - Bouncing declined credit card transactions back to life

Next for an interesting company in the e-commerce space. Have you ever had credit card payments declined for no reason? I experienced this during a recent international trip and this is an extremely frustrating experience. Founders Bator Sutton and Ron Shteinberg have looked into this problem and discovered that an average of 10% of online transactions being incorrectly rejected at checkout (!)

That is why they have developed an innovative AI algorithm analyzes millions of data points to identify which declined transactions should have been approved. In real-time, their platform recovers over 30% of these falsely declined payments, providing a smooth checkout experience for customers and unlocking a 5% uplift in top-line revenue for businesses - which in the e-commerce world, is a LOT.

By integrating seamlessly with existing checkout processes, Bounce offers a risk-free solution that requires zero additional budget or optimization efforts from businesses. Companies simply enjoy the benefits of increased revenue, improved customer experience, and a positive impact on their overall growth and performance.

Like last week’s featured company ReturnGO , Bounce has identified a major problem in e-commerce and came up with a solution that is a no-brainer for shop owners.

Their success in addressing false payment declines is a great example of the out-of-the-box thinking and innovative spirit that characterizes Israel.

Bounce can recover 30% of all falsely declined credit card transactions with clever AI

Configu - Configuration management made easy for developers

And now for a developer-first company: I want to highlight Configu , a company that is changing the way software is developed and maintained by tackling a critical issue: configuration management.

Configuration files, which contain settings and parameters for applications, are often scattered across different formats and coding languages, leading to manual work, errors, and potential production failures.

Configu offers a holistic set of tools for handling all aspects of configuration management, with features like permissions, type validation, test frameworks, automations, and audit trails. Additionally, Configu integrates seamlessly with third-party tools and services, making it easy to incorporate into existing workflows.

Configu’s mission is to save organizations immense amounts of time and money spent due to configuration errors, and to shorten development and DevOps cycles by eliminating the manual work associated with configuration files. By tackling this critical challenge, Configu is enabling more efficient and reliable software development, empowering teams to focus on innovation rather than configuration hassles.

The Israeli technology ecosystem continues to impress with its innovative solutions to real-world developer problems. Configu is a prime example of this, addressing a longstanding issue in software development with a simple and practical approach.

Congratulations to Peleg Porat , Ran Cohen , and the entire Configu team for their remarkable achievement.

Unleash - Answering questions based on corporate knowledge

Last and not least, it is my pleasure to highlight Unleash (Acq. by Zendesk) , a workplace search engine co-founded by Itay Itzhaki and Omer Koreh , that eliminates data silos and streamlines information access across an organization using large language models.

Unleash is on a mission to solve the digital disorganization that plagues modern workplaces, where information is scattered across various apps, cloud services, and departmental silos. This fragmentation leads to lost productivity, recreated work, and inefficient collaboration.

At the core of Unleash’s solution is a semantic retrieval engine that allows users to search and find information using natural language queries, directly from the company’s collective knowledge.

With Unleash, organizations can also integrate the AI-powered search and question-answering capabilities into the tools they already use, such as Slack, Teams, and Zendesk, making it a seamless part of their workflow.

Unleash is a prime example of how Israeli technology solves real-world problems and boosts corporate productivity.

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